Friday, October 19, 2007

Green Collar Jobs

Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman columns are free again (no more Times Select)! In Friedman’s Wednesday column (link) he discusses “Green Collar Jobs”, these are jobs retrofitting houses to increase energy efficiency or installing green technologies like solar and wind. As Friedman points out these jobs might be ideal for former blue collar workers who are losing their jobs through globalization, but in order to install a solar panel or insulation you need to be living in the US, so that job cannot be shipped overseas.

If we are going to retrain workers who lose their jobs due to globalization, getting them into industries where the more trained workers we have in the “green field” the lower the cost of these goods will be meaning more will be sold, which reduces pollution for everyone. A quick google search suggests Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are pushing for such a plan, although nothing is turning up for the Republican Front Runners or Obama.

Also for those of you in DC, today and tomorrow are the last two days of the Solar Decathlon an exciting competition where college students from across the world build houses that run on solar energy. Go down to the Mall and check it out.

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About Me

I’m an Associate Professor of Economics at Towson University. I decided to start this blog to communicate with my students, friends, family, and colleagues about what I think is interesting in economics. Most of my own scholarly work has focused on economic development in Latin America and educational attainment. In my spare time I enjoy baseball, beer, cooking, coffee, and eating out. I live with my wonderful wife, Marie, and daughters, Sylvia and Dorothy in Silver Spring, Maryland. I hope you enjoy my blog.